In 401 BC, a mercenary army of 10,000 Greeks found itself in a challenging situation

A Persian prince hired the Greeks to fight his older brother for the throne of the Kingdom of Persia. The problem was that this prince was killed early in the war. The Greek mercenary's hopes of getting rich were dashed, and they found themselves hundreds of kilometers from home, in hostile territory on the banks of the Euphrates River (in present-day Iraq). Despite the problematic opening conditions, they managed to escape by an arduous and adventurous journey, and many returned home safely. But the reason we even know of this story is that one of the commanders of the Greek mercenary army was an Athenian named Xenophon, who later became a well-known politician, historian, and author, some of whose books have survived to the present day, and this includes Anabasis (The Journey of the 10'000) which tells the story of himself and his troops. It is considered a kind of true historical Odyssey story.

Now why am I, a scientist and a psychonaut (but not a historian), relaying this story? Because one of the strangest stories that Xenophon describes takes place in the last part of the journey home. Near the Black Sea, the Greeks arrive at an abandoned village looking for something to eat, and this is how Xenophon describes what happened:

"Now, for the most part, there was nothing here which they found strange; but the swarms of bees in the area were numerous, and the soldiers who ate of the honey all went off their heads and suffered from vomiting and diarrhea, and not one of them could stand up, but those who had eaten a little were like people exceedingly drunk, while those who had eaten a great deal seemed like crazy, or even, in some cases, dying men. So they lay there in great numbers as though the army had suffered a defeat, and great despondency prevailed. On the next day, however, no one had died, and at approximately the same hour as they had eaten the honey, they began to come to their senses."

This testimony of Xenophon, from more than 2,500 years ago, is the earliest documentation of a unique phenomenon known as 'mad honey'.

Remember last week's post about zoopsychedelics? So to a certain extent, this post is kind of an appendix to that post. I write a 'kind of' appendix because, unlike the Sonoran toad that produces bufotenin endogenously, the case of mad honey and bees is different. This is not an endogenous action but a side effect that occurs in populations of bees that live in many mountainous valleys in present-day northern Turkey and in the Himalayan valleys. The reason these bees produce 'mad honey' is evident upon further inspection. Rhododendron is abundant in those valleys (where mad honey is found), bearing an impressive blue-purple bloom rich in nectar.

The pollen of these plan contains neurotoxins called grayanotoxins that have a psychedelic effect similar to what we can observe today in people traveling to Costa Rica for 'Kambo Medicine.

Bees, apparently, are entirely indifferent to grayanotoxins, and from what I have seen, it is doubtful whether this honey gives them any evolutionary advantage - as far as they are concerned, it is honey. As far as we're concerned, it's OH!. It is not a common product, but this honey can be found in some areas of northern Turkey (in the same provinces where Xenophon had passed) and in some places in Nepal, in the Himalayan valleys where Rhododendron strains are also common.

 There is another extraordinary historical story related to mad honey. In 65 BCE, about three hundred and fifty years after Xenophon's ordeal, the Roman general Pompey (Pompey the Great) returned from a campaign of conquest in the Levant and, on his way back to Rome, decided to take care of a small and stubborn kingdom called Pontus that sat along the shores of the Black Sea.

Pontus was headed by a cunning king named Mithridates, whom the Romans had failed to defeat over two previous campaigns. This time, it seemed like it would be a different story until the Roman army came across a cache of honey and rushed to savor it. You guessed it, it was mad honey that was left there on purpose (and this may be the source of the phrase 'honey trap'). About an hour after consuming the honey, the Roman legionnaires started swaying, and then the army of Mithridates arrived, and the remnants of Pompey's army were forced to retreat tooth and nail. To this day, this incident is one of the rare examples in history of successful military use of state-altering compounds.